


Sight-Reading

by Argyle



Category: Good Omens
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-23
Updated: 2005-06-23
Packaged: 2019-02-11 19:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12942546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: Sound carries best at night.





	Sight-Reading

Sound carries best at night.

Crowley knows this. He knows the muffled whisper of wings falling upon some far, darkened shore, and the light that once crossed the angel’s hair as they leaned on opposite walls, the air between them burning.

He moves the tips of his fingers over the keys.

It seems that there must be time enough to return to such a place, that moment when his sudden hands first told him he was lost, to be understood even after he has spent eternity turning pages and speaking in circles for the chance to mask the darkness yet unsighted.

Feet stirring against the pedals, he grows impatient for that fierce first step over air.

\------------------

It had been a gift from Aziraphale.

“Do you know how to play the piano?” the angel asked him casually one autumn afternoon, the soft sound of his voice nearly lost upon the back of the wind. His shoes echoed against the pavement, and his cheeks were ruddy with the chill.

“No.” Crowley shook his head. “Why do you ask?”

Aziraphale hadn’t answered, but there was a smile in his eyes.

A week later, as Crowley was readying himself for a day’s worth of transgression, he found an enormous wooden box in his foyer. It filled the air with the mingled scents of pine and pitch, and the painted arrows which read THIS WAY UP in several different languages were in disagreement on at least one basic principle; as it stood, any hope of directly entering and exiting the flat was quite out of the question. He eyed it with suspicion, running his hands over the edges and corners, and held an ear to its side.

A moment’s pause, and then two.

Crowley sighed.

It didn’t seem to be ticking, which was as apt an invitation as the hour would be wont to warrant. He cracked his knuckles with exaggerated delicacy, and with a deep breath he moved forward to wrench the lid away. It only was a matter of leverage from then on. A veritable avalanche of splintered plywood and nails, sawdust and loose strands of packing-fiber came down around him. “Well,” he said, brushing errant specks from his shirtsleeve. “That was easy enough.”

There was a strained, uncomfortable groan as the box’s sides crashed to the floor.

“Right.”

And there it was. A grand piano: darkly colossal, glinting with delight. Crowley stared at it for a moment, paused and perfectly still, and then frowned as he saw his own fractured reflection against its surface.

It somehow seemed to be the type of showpiece upon which one would be wont to prop up a bit of mortal remains, though Crowley was unable to reconcile this with the fact that he was so suddenly in possession of such a thing, and a good urn is hard to find nowadays. He traced possible explanations through his mind, more than a few involving Isabella and Amontillado. How indeed would a grand piano suddenly appear in his foyer without approval or knowled-- oh.

Of course.

There was a thin envelope tucked against the case, finely sealed with crimson wax.

Crowley ripped it open, smiling slowly as he saw the familiar sweep of the angel’s copperplate script, and read:

_They say it’s therapeutic._

A.

With a low, indulgent laugh that was nearly a hiss, he remembered Aziraphale’s earlier query, not entirely allowing himself to forgo the thought of the immense expense and trouble that had obviously been gone to. In fact, when one went so far as to recognize that Crowley lived on the sixth floor, it was really a rather kind gesture.

He scowled.

If the laws of physics had faced any other adversary that morning, they would have insisted upon the actuality that the library was not large enough to accommodate such a massive object, but that is exactly where Crowley decided to put it.

Of course, it wasn’t a room he used on a regular basis; the mere act of listening to Aziraphale natter on about books, and the musty scent which lingered on the angel’s fingertips hours after he left his shop, kept Crowley more than saturated. The library’s very existence might be attributed to the unmistakable aesthetic appeal of stacked leather spines, of wheeled ladders and antique globes that were actually liquor lockers. A grand piano could only increase the ambience of intellectual pursuit, Crowley reasoned, and it looked well atop the wine-colored whorls of the carpet. He felt comfortable in the belief that were he ever to invite Aziraphale into it, or if he even mentioned its presence, Aziraphale would approve of such a place.

Crowley covered the piano with a white sheet, turned down the lamps, drew the curtains; he locked the door to the library, and the key felt heavy in his pocket.

From time to time, he offhandedly wondered whether Aziraphale was offended by his failure to mention the gift, though he never found himself able to read such an affectation by sight on the angel’s face. There was only a calm, practiced civility, a natural lucidity, and years went by.

Twenty years, in fact.

The atomic age brought with it new sights, interesting sounds, and innumerable technological distractions. There were turntables and amplifiers, faux-wood television sets and gas cookers. Crowley couldn’t be bothered to plug them in, but he took a certain care in rearranging his flat.

Progress wasn’t such a bad thing when it came wrapped in cellophane.

It was only as an afterthought that he stepped into the library. He pulled the sheet from the grand piano, lifted the lid from the grinning, snake scale keys, and quite forgot about the static transistor that he had been searching for. The bench was hard, the strings perfectly in tune, and in the evenings that followed, Crowley came to perch before it only to withdraw with the ivory sweep of dawn. An early, fumbled minuet became an experimental harmony, a mist which curled around his languid form and that of the piano’s polished wood, a throbbing curtain that could be parted by no amount of lines from an unfinished score by Liszt. His touch was light, but irrevocable, like footprints in new snow.

He held his breath and felt the sun on his face.

Perhaps Aziraphale had meant for it to be like this, would there was time enough to ask.

\------------------

Crowley knows the sight of white smoke, bars streaking the horizon by pulse and octave as the world becomes utterly blue. Dreams arrive by a scattering of feathers, waiting to be unlocked with the whorl of windy seconds, and he flies so close he can almost taste it.


End file.
